Maybe it'll stop being crazy after all these years!

** I went to bed early last night, before the California election returns were fully counted. At that point it looked like the Governator's propositions, that I voted against, were winning, and the two I voted for were losing. It was depressing - having endured the incredible insult of the Bush second term and its slow, tortuous unravelling - like a desecrated mummy - I just couldn't imagine surviving in a world where official insanity continues to parade around like a naked emperor.

I woke up just a few hours later from a scary dream in which a crazy man was out to slash me. The words of Paul Simon's great song "Still crazy after all these years" then started going around and around in my head:

Now I sit by my window and I watch the cars
I fear I'll do some damage one fine day
But I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers
Still crazy after all these years
Still crazy, still crazy, still crazy after all these years

Then I read a couple of blogs that commented on the West Wing episode last Sunday, which broke some new TV ground by having its characters, presidential candidates, have a "live" debate. I had been thinking about how brilliant Alan Alda (in real life a Liberal) was in that role, so smoothly and intelligently articulating a political stance that I find abhorrent. It further depressed me that there are no Democrats with similar skills - although Jimmy Smits did a creditable job of articulating the Left's positions - and the audience that voted agreed he'd won the debate. Read these two blogs for a good description of the event: Russell Roberts in Cafe Hayek and George's at seixon.

It laid another stone on my depressed head. The crazies have got all the power, the style, the opportunity!

And then at 2:30AM I checked sfgate.com for the election results: All eight ballot initiatives fail! Even though the two I voted for didn't make it, the failure of the Governor's props lifted my mood. Hope is stirring (barely) - the whole bad dream may be dissolving. (Ah, dreamer!)